VANCOUVER — Even in a place that doesn't shock easily, the sight of a naked man falling off a steep cliff, his minivan still stuck in the trees above, was not your usual day at the beach.

“I heard this loud crash, then I heard the trees cracking – crash-crash-crash,” said one nude sunbather on clothing-optional Wreck Beach. Then he said he saw a Caucasian man, with long, matted brown hair, covered in cuts and bruises, slip down the cliff...